Rebels Fight Government Forces As Full-scale War Engulfs Congo

Full-scale warfare erupted inside Congo's capital Thursday, as
Rwandan-backed rebels fought government troops and their allies in several
neighborhoods close to the city center.

President Laurent Kabila's army, along with troops from Zimbabwe,
Angola and Naimbia, appeared to be waging a stiff defense against what
officials now concede is heavy, well-armed rebel infiltration around this
city of more 5 million people.

The rebels took up positions in the most heavily populated sector of
the city, nicknamed "China" by local residents because of its traffic and
congestion, on the city's east side near the airport. Officials Thursday
were attempting to clear civilians from rebel-held pockets, apparently to
make it easier to attack them.

"Our armed forces are progressing with much caution, which means that
the operation is lasting longer than first thought," said Gaetan Kakudji,
Kabila's minister of state, as he spoke to reporters at Ndjili
International Airport.

The government flew some foreign journalists to Ndjili in a Zimbabwean
helicopter gunship to show that the airport was unscathed and still in
government hands. From there, the reporters could hear echoes of mortar and
automatic weapons fire from the fighting that raged just five miles west,
toward Kinshasa's downtown.

It had appeared earlier in the week that Kabila and his allies had the
Rwandan-backed rebels on the run. Warplanes had hit rebel positions in the
southwestern province of Lower Congo, and the government reported that it
had stopped a rebel column attempting to move on Kinshasa.

But the rebels apparently slipped around government defenses. Instead
of entering the city from the southwest, they managed to move to the city's
southeast side and filter hundreds, perhaps even thousands of troops into
the China area. Officials say they believe that some rebels had been in
place in Kinshasa but undercover for several weeks, awaiting the moment to
strike.

Thus, the battle for Kinshasa is on, with armed forces of as many as
seven African countries fighting in the heart of the continent for control
of a vast, fractured nation that is struggling through its second military
conflict in less than two years.

The fight, which has caused a regional rift between several African
leaders, threatens to degenerate into a humanitarian catastrophe, with
reports of massacres in the eastern war zones and refugees fleeing the
fighting there. Here in the capital, food, water and gasoline shortages
have become epidemic. Rebels control the main port through which supplies
are imported, as well as the country's main hydroelectric dam, where they
apparently have cut off power to the city, leaving it with only limited
electricity for 11 straight days.

Kabila is fighting the same forces that brought him to power 15 months
ago: Congolese from the Tutsi ethnic group, along with troops from Rwanda's
Tutsi-dominated army. Though Tutsis had been the core of the military force
that overthrew dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and installed Kabila to power,
they turned against him because of disputes over how to deal with the
ethnic violence that plagues Congo's border with Uganda, Rwanda and
Burundi. They launched the current rebellion in that eastern border area on
Aug. 2.

Diplomats also believe that Ugandan troops - another force that helped
install Kabila - are in the fray, and some reports Thursday suggested that
Burundi's Tutsi-led government had jumped in as well.

But Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia, have sent troops, fighter planes and
tanks to help Kabila, and Zimbabwe now is sending in reinforcements for the
fight over Kinshasa.

Some Kinshasa residents were pitching in for the fight, albeit with
chilling results. They helped troops search out rebel elements in the
hardscrabble suburbs of Masina, Mokali and Ndjili, and one local journalist
said he saw the charred remains of about 40 bodies in different parts of
the city where residents had killed suspected rebels themselves. It was not
clear whether the dead rebels were Congolese or foreign.

Also unclear is who is who among the living. For that reason, Kabila's
troops Thursday began wearing their camouflage jackets inside out, so they
wouldn't shoot or arrest one another.